How We Came to Know Mona

July 9, 2009 By: lisahoward

After introducing you to our dear friend Mona…”The Other Woman”…aka Keith’s GPS, I thought I might share how she came to be part of our lives. As with most things in my world, it involves a little story…

As long as I have known Keith, he has wanted a Garmin GPS system but would never pull the trigger as the one he wanted was, in his words, overpriced. To his delight, this past Thanksgiving, they went on sale…and it was a really goooooood sale. The only drawback, the offer was good only while supplies lasted and of course they would be the spotlighted item for the Day After Thanksgiving sale.

Anyone who really knows me is well aware that I HATE shopping on this day. I will not venture toward a mall if my life depended on it. And you can TOTALLY rule out a trip to Wally World. I cringe at the thought of darkening their doors on a regular day, much less this Day. From. Shopping. Hell! But I couldn’t resist the idea of granting one of my man’s wishes. So as everyone was going to sleep on Thanksgiving night, I claimed to suffer from insomnia and stayed up to “watch TV” so I could sleep on the couch and sneak out for some early shopping. After everyone was asleep, I proceeded to set my phone alarm for 4-freakin’-a.m. and the stage was set for operation “Surprise My Guy”.

If you have yet to brave the throngs of morons (me included) who attempt to even enter the parking lot of Walmart on this day, I offer one word of warning….DON’T!

Oh. My. GOSH! A sea of people like you’ve never seen before! Trying to play it smart, I went straight to the first sales associate I spotted upon entering the door and asked where I could find the deal of the day. I was directed to electronics. Duh! After a 20 minute search of the area, 5 minute search time…15minutes clawing my way through arms, legs and buggy wheels, I realized you had to stand in the check-out line for that department and they would retrieve one for you. Did I mention the line snaked through every aisle in the electronics department and continued into the automotive section? Yep, it took another 10 minutes just to find the end of the line. And it wasn’t a speedy line…NOPE…we moved at the speed of ice cream melting on a frozen pond in the dead of winter.

I kept asking if anyone was trying to purchase the Garmin GPS and I found it odd that no one was. But I was determined to not lose my place in line and I continued to wait. And wait I did. Minute after horrendous minute. I just kept shuffling from one foot to the other berating myself for being such a nice, giving girlfriend. Why, oh why, couldn’t I be one of those mean-ol’-bossy-won’t-do-anything-for-you girlfriends? Eventually, I broke. I left the line in search of more help. Back to the front of the store I went and I’m ever so glad I did. I had been misdirected previously as the GPS systems were a “special” item and were located in the lay-away department. Oh Buggers! Another super long line!

Always wanting to make the best of any painful situation, I tried to make nice with my fellow shoppers. You know me…gotta talk…why not to total strangers? Ummmm, not such friendly people shopping in the wee morning hours. Couldn’t strike up a conversation with anyone. I debated talking to myself. And I didn’t really worry about being singled out. NO ONE cared enough to pay me any attention! No “How are you today?”, “What price-busting deal brings you out at such an early hour?”, “Are those really pajama pants you’re wearing?”, “Hey. Lady. I DON’T WANT TO TALK TO YOU!” Nope! Not a single word came my way. So I carried on conversations with myself…in my head…just in case someone really was watching.

When I finally got to the front of the line, the sales clerk asked what I wanted to purchase. I flashed her a big ol’ smile and answered her question. Hey, she was actually talking to me. Never mind the fact she was being paid to do so. She then asked me how many I would like. I started to answer only one and then I paused to think. If I was going to go to so much trouble to get this baby, maybe I should get more than one. Could make great gifts, I might actually want one…who knew. So I answered “I’ll take 3 please.” I paid. And then I left.

I was gone a total of 3 and half hours for what should have been, under normal conditions, a 30 minute shopping trip. I let myself ever-so-quietly back in the house and……….waited. Keith is one really late sleeper. And I was one super excited chickie. I could not WAIT for him to get up and discover what I had done for him. So I turned on the TV and fought the urge to wake him up.

After several episodes of mindless TiVo’ed shows later, Keith finally came down and discovered his surprise. Of course he loved it and I was quickly named girlfriend of the year! Little did I know the monster I had created.

Every…single…time we climbed in the car, Keith had to turn on his new toy. Even a trip to the corner convenience store had to be mapped out. I was hearing the “little lady in the box” in my sleep. I quickly dubbed her “The Other Woman”. No talking in the car for fear we would miss a turn. Never mind the fact Keith drove these roads on a daily basis. He loved her so much…he named her Mona.

But the honeymoon is over. Keith no longer totally trusts her. Even before the Dairy Queen debacle, Keith returned to his former belief that a female could never have a better sense of direction that a man. Guess that’s why that testosterone-laden sense of direction took us 2 hours out of our way when returning from the beach last month.

MEN!!!! Can’t travel with ’em. Can’t live without ’em.

Comments

Lisa I love your stories- you have such a way with words!!! But have you ever thought maybe Keith just didn’t want your trip to come to an end and so he faked the whole thing and just took the ” long way” home just to spend a few more hours with you?? Anyway that’s what my optimistic, estrogen filled mind wants to believe!! I’m a romantic after all!!! xoxo-Kim

hahaha, I don’t know what I love more, your story, of Kim’s comment LOL. Although I love her explanation of the male character and motivations, I tend to feel the way you do … MEN!!!!!! Hahaha, still laughing, sorry. Well, if he ever really gets tired of Mona, tell him to send her to me, I have no sense of direction whatsoever. I have to think each time I go to a place I might have visited before a hundred times … I still think, how do I start this trip, do I go left or right???? It drives my husband crazy!! He’s one of those guys who never get lost, or when they do, never panick and are back on track within’ 10 minutes… My lack of direction sense is so bad that when I take my son to soccer games by myself, he wants to leave extra early, just in case we might get lost. He learned this lesson at a very early age LOL, and panicks every time we get in the car without his dad. It has come to the point when my husband doesn’t really know which way to go, he politely listens to the direction I would take, and then takes the other direction LOL. Hah, had him going wrong a few times using this technique though, I’m not totally useless you know haha.

Come to think of it, I do like Kim’s explanation better LOL, go with that one, you’ll be walking on clouds all day!

Oh you are too funny and I am so glad that you were able to score on 3 of those babies….I honestly cannot stand that thing when we are driving….that voice drives me crazy….but without it we would end up in no man’s land…I was replaced by our system….Joe used to call me his GPS, but now I am just the old lady sitting next to him….while his sexy voice GPS tells him where to go!!!! That’s a good one…..after his behavior last night….as you know…I would like to tell him where to go…. OOPS!!!! Love ya chickie and man do I wish I was spending the time with you and the girls this weekend!!! 🙂

I went one time to day after Thanksgiving shopping, I ended up buying way more than I needed too and should have just slept in! The only problem I see with the GPS systems in California is that people pay more attention to them than to the posted signs. People stop in the middle of the road because they are consulting them. Dumb! I use mapquest and if Im lost we have a mapbook, and maps on our blackberrys. I dont want one and David refuses to get one. My friend actually called me one time and asked which was the better route to my house (after I had given her exact directions) because her GPS was telling her to go a different way than I did. I told her to go whatever way she wanted, but it was taking her way out of her way to get here!!

OMG!! Lisa that is just too funny of a story!! We did almost the same thing for my FIL, only we waited till 8am to go to Wally World, and found they were all sold out, but kept asking and finally one of the sales ladies in electronics found “1”, and a few minutes later found 2 more, then 3, as people asked about them. I know they can sometimes be really picky, the one we had borrowed to go to the Jersey shore 2 years ago from Nazareth, PA was funny. She spoke with a british accent and her name was Emily. Emily was pretty smart cause she got us there AFTER directing us to the freeway that was jam-packed with Saturday traffic to the beach. An hour trip was supposed to take us almost 3 hours according to Emily, but we got off the freeway, and voila! Made it in just over an hour. Those ladies are smarter than you think!!

OMG!!! GIRL, THE STORIES YOU CAN TELL!!! You have such a hilarious way with words. I can NOT believe after all that, he does not trust Mona! hahahaha Well, good luck with that one. Maybe Mona should get a sex change! hahaha

OMG! That was so d*mn funny to read! I’m so sorry you went through all that to get the darn thing and then he just dumped her like a sack of potatoes! It’s seriously a man thing! My husband ALWAYS takes the long way around and insists it’s the short cut—NOT! NO WAY! NOT a chance in hell are his ways ever short! I don’t do GPS’s. I do the old stone age way of thngs and I look up the directions on the computer, HAND write them on a piece of scrap paper and read them as I drive to get to where I need to go! And I always get there in the shortest time, because I make sure I have the shortest route possible! Even if it means driving over a bridge *cringe*, I hate bridges!

OH MY GOODNESS, Lisa!!! I oh so LOVE your Operation “Surprise My Guy”!!!!! You’ve absolutely had me crackin’ up from start to finish! What a writer you are! :> While there are MANY!, I loved the words, “we moved at the speed of ice cream melting on a frozen pond in the dead of winter”….I could read them over and over and over! :>

And YES! You do indeed have an ‘attitude of gratitude’! I love each and every one of your comments! They most definitely put a smile on my face and I thank you for them! :>

You were one brave gal…in Australia we have boxing day sales… they are not for the faint hearted…it would have to be the bargain of the decade to get me in the stores on that dayMy husband won’t have a GPS he maps out where we are going the day before so that he knows how to get there…funny thing we end up taking the scenic route…oxo

We have a Tomtom GPS. Hubby got it as a perk from work, we would never have bought the evil demon. She scares the crap out of use when she ‘yells’ TURN RIGHT 400 METERS. And she needs her maps up-dated, which apparently we can do on-line. Maybe that’s what Mona needs. We haven’t named ours yet, but it might be Crazy Beotch.

Aww, you are the sweetest!! I hope you got to take a nap when you came home 😉 I only braved Black Friday *that* early in the morning (b/c I normally go shopping that day, but usually much later) once – and I was 37 weeks pregnant! What on earth was I thinking? I stood in line for hooooours, and I didn’t even get the main thing I wanted. I think the people around me thought I was going to drop that baby out right then and there, lol!